


The Snow Day

by GretchenSinister



Series: My Top 20 Short Gen Fics [17]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2020-06-23 19:23:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19707859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: Original Prompt: "North tries to figure out what to make Jack for his first Christmas present and planning a party for him. The other Guardians give their input and argumentative shenanigans ensue.Meanwhile, everyone has been avoiding Jack so the surprise isn’t ruined (the party where he’s going to be given the gift is both for Christmas and him) but Jack thinks no one wants him around.Hurt/comfort/humor+100 for including the elves, egglets, and baby tooths doing something for Jack together with disastrous yet touching results.+1000 for Jack being super adorable and heartbreakingly surprised at everything they did for him"Yeah, I started this one with the Guardians giving Jack the gift they ended up making for him. It’s wrapped in a snow globe, and, well, it’s not the kind of thing that can be topped in later years.





	The Snow Day

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 3/7/2016.

“I—wow—I really shouldn’t have made you chase me down and shove me through a magic portal again,” Jack said, staring at the Workshop in all its Christmas finery. “I thought…North, is this why I stopped being able to get into the Workshop?”  
  
“Of course,” North said. He handed Jack a cup of wassail, which Jack absently took. “This is your first Christmas with the Guardians, of course we wanted it to be a surprise, and of course you should not have had to do any of the work of preparation. What other reason could there be?”  
  
“Well…” Jack looked around at the others. They all seemed concerned, but hopeful, and ready to be happy, and seeing them now, he wondered why he had ever thought the things he did. But that had been the problem, right? He hadn’t seen them. “It had only been a few months of me being a Guardian. I don’t know a lot about being around people. I didn’t know if I was doing things right. And then you all stopped talking to me as often and I couldn’t get into the Workshop—and that, I thought was because it was getting closer to Christmas and that you, North, didn’t want me to mess things up somehow.”  
  
The Guardians look ruefully at each other. “You thought you had done something—or that we thought you would do something—to get in trouble?” Tooth asked.  
  
“Well, it’s kind of what I was used to,” Jack said. “And that sort of thing just doesn’t disappear. And you know, it’s not exactly ruining the surprise to say you’re having a Christmas party around Christmas. I didn’t think you wanted me around, since no one was talking to me.”  
  
“We were busy,” Bunny said.  
  
“Busy doing what?” Jack said. “This place looks great, but decorating it couldn’t have totally stopped you from even saying hi for weeks.”  
  
A gift box appeared over Sandy’s head. “That’s right,” Tooth said, nodding. “We were making your Christmas present.”  
  
Jack’s growing anger gave way to confusion, as everyone seemed to regard this as a reasonable answer. “Okay. What kind of Christmas present could have kept you all busy for so long?”  
  
They ushered him over to the huge tree with barely contained excitement, North conceding that they could do presents early this year, just once.  
  
“We had a hard time figuring out what to get you that you would really want,” Tooth said. “But when we did—well, you’ll see, really soon.”  
  
Jack considered the present Sandy pressed into his hands. It looked very much like the prototypical present. The box was a cube maybe ten inches to a side, wrapped in shiny red paper and tied with an elaborate silver bow. He was tempted to shake it, but since he was so in the dark on what it was, he decided against doing so.  
  
“Go ahead,” said North, and so Jack did.  
  
Inside was a snowglobe. One of North’s magical snowglobes, yes, but still. It wasn’t something that should have kept everyone busy for weeks. North probably made several of these every few days. It was beautiful, but not something that needed everyone’s skills. He looked up at the others in confusion.  
  
“This is the best way we could think to wrap it,” North said. “But you are not done opening this present yet.”  
  
“Break the snowglobe with your staff, Jack,” said Tooth.  
  
“And make sure you get some of the water inside on it,” Bunny said.  
  
Jack glanced at Sandy to see if he was going to say anything, but he just smiled and clapped his hands.  
  
“Okay. All right.” Jack took a deep breath. Why did they need a snowglobe to wrap his present? It couldn’t be what he suspected, could it? No, it couldn’t, that was so much, too much….Well, at least he didn’t need to wait to find out. He tossed the snowglobe in the air and swung his staff at it like he was going for a home run. It shattered, covering the staff, Jack, and everyone with water and colored light, and when it had dimmed to less than blinding, a portal opened before them.  
  
“Go through,” North said encouragingly.  
  
Jack did, and the others followed him out to…somewhere. They stood on top of a steep, though not too tall, snow-covered hill. Rolling hills of various heights and steepness surrounded them, heading out to distant mountains. There were groves of pine trees here and there on the hills, and Jack could see the shine of perfect, clear ice on ponds and lakes in some of the valleys. It was bright daylight, the sky a blue that reminded him, strangely and forcefully, of his own eyes, and the sun was high. It was also in a spot that made no sense at all, given the landscape, the time of year, and the amount of snow on the ground. It made the snow sparkle wonderfully, though. “Where are we?” Jack asked softly.  
  
“We didn’t come up with a name,” Bunny said. “We thought we should leave that to you. It’s why we didn’t build anything, either. That is, we didn’t build any structures. Everything else, though…”  
  
Jack looks around at the landscape again, swallows hard, and sits down suddenly in the six inches or so of snow on the hilltop.  
  
“You mean this is like the Warren? Or Dreamland?”  
  
“Not precisely,” North said. “Is for you. And is made with your center in mind. We are knowing that you would want to spend time with children, so we made some parts of this place not what they would be in the ordinary world. Sandy did major heavy lifting here.” He looked down at Jack and smiled. “Can you tell any of them already?”  
  
“Oh…my…” Jack lifted a couple of handfuls of snow off the ground. “It’s soft and fluffy, but it…yeah, it makes snowballs easily. And—it’s cold and wet on my skin, but it’s not soaking into my clothes? And…”  
  
“And you can eat it, still,” North said. “Also, though is not concern for you, it is cold but is never _too_ cold, and it may make fingers and noses red, but it will never cause frostbite.”  
  
“None of the ice on the lakes will ever break,” Tooth said. “And the snow you bring here will be like the snow already on the ground.”  
  
“There aren’t any animals, here, yet,” said Bunny, “but we thought you’d like to do that yourself, especially since the ones you make won’t have to worry about finding food in a place like this.”  
  
“So, do you like it?” Tooth asked. “I did a lot of the design, actually, from all the happy winter memories I could gather—I think this place will snow on its own once you build shelters. And, if you do bring kids here, North said he would give you hot chocolate and cider and other things if you want to give the kids those things, and after you do, you’ll always have those supplies, because they think you should.”  
  
“I have a whole host of old-fashioned looking but one hundred percent safe and comfortable skis and skates and snowshoes and sleds as soon as you want, too,” North said, crouching down beside Jack.  
  
Jack took a few deep breaths and pushed his hands into the snow to settle himself. Sandy walked up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder, and that was it. He burst into ridiculous tears, which he did his best to interrupt with assurances that he did love this place, he did, it was better than he could have imagined, he loved it, he loved it, he loved it. He hadn’t realized this was even possible.  
  
When he calmed down, he found himself as part of a group embrace. “Oh!” North said, squeezing them all tighter. “Forgot to tell you one thing. Because of snowglobe, you can use your staff to draw a portal from here to anywhere, and from anywhere to here. Since we were also hit with the water, we can come and go, too, but…but if you would like to keep this place just for you, I can undo the magic on us.”  
  
“No, no!” Jack said, awkwardly trying to hug everyone back. “I want you to be able to come here any time. To come to…a Snow Day. I still don’t know where it is, but I know when it is.”  
  
To be technical, it’s halfway between the North Pole and Dreamland, Sandy explained.  
  
Jack laughed and relaxed against everyone. “I’m not sure if I’ll be able to think about anything for the rest of the party but what I’m going to do with this place,” he said.  
  
“You see,” North said. He reached over to fondly ruffle Jack’s hair. “This is why we do not do presents early.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments from Tumblr:
> 
> mira-eyeteeth answered: THERE’S SOMETHING IN MY EYE *sniff*


End file.
